Archives For ghosts

Book Summary Note from Felina Silver Robinson: Authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl put together an intriguing four book series of which Beautiful Creatures is the starting point. The Gothic clan of beautiful youngsters will make all teenagers wish they were a part of the story. There are so many buried secrets in their world of paranormal events but not without ghosts, magic, and a form of witchcraft that’s somewhat different than you may be accustom to seeing. This story would not be complete without their own secret world. I warn you that you’ll want to make sure you have the time to sit down and read, because once you start, you won’t want to stop.

This is it for a while. I’m starting work on future chapters now. I hope that what I’ve shared will keep you interested until I’m ready to share what comes next. Please feel free to post comments on suggestions for change or additions. Please do not link advertisements to this posting. Your interest is much appreciated. Felina Silver Robinson (Author)

Returning home from school Helen smelt a horrible burning smell all around her. Helen was afraid to breath in. She started choking and didn’t have her asthma inhaler. She got closer and closer to her house. Helen could see flames erupting worse than an explosion. She started getting scared that her house had caught on fire again. Helen started running faster and faster. Helen realized that from the angle of the smoke it had to be coming from the church. Helen couldn’t get there fast enough. She fell upon the crowd of worshipers and spectators. The church was now nothing but a hollow shell. Helen suddenly fell into a snow bank on her knees crying endless tears. She couldn’t imagine what she was going to do now. There was no one standing that wasn’t screaming, crying or yelling. It was a true disaster.

Helen’s mom grabbed her shoulder. She knew that Helen would have a hard time dealing with the fire. The church had been the one place that truly meant something to her. It had become her home away from home. This made Helen’s mother feel good because she knew if she were there she wouldn’t have to worry about her getting into any trouble.

This wasn’t about the feelings of any one person. This fire affected an entire community. The church not only provided spiritual support, it was a place for people to go for help, almost any kind of help. They had many programs for all ages. Al of these things were going to be missing for however long it would take for the church to be rebuilt.

Helen’s mom insisted that she come home now. That night Helen couldn’t even think of sleeping. The only thing she could think about was the church. She could smell of the burnt walls creeping in her bedroom window. She had a feeling that she would smell it for a long time to come whether her window was open or not.

Helen waited for everyone in her house to go to bed. It was her plan to sneak out of the house and go over to the church. She had to go see what it looked like. Otherwise there would be no rest for her. She already knew she wasn’t going to sleep, but she wouldn’t even be able to lay down and just close her eyes if she didn’t get to see the church, and tomorrow would just be too late.

The house sounded quiet. Helen put her sweatshirt on top of her pajamas. She purposely did not wear her favorite night-gown knowing that she was going to sneak out. She didn’t want to take a chance hurting her uncovered legs. She made sure everyone was sleeping, she then slipped out the back door. She was afraid that the creeks from the front stairs would wake up her mother who could hear a pin drop. Helen slipped a small cloth in between the back door so it would not lock.

Once at the bottom of the stairs, Helen started to walk really fast. The church was only a half a block up the street and a turn to the left and another 1/4 of a block.

Luckily no one saw her out there. Helen’s mom always had her friends watching her and her sister and brother and would report if anything was not right. The closer Helen got to the church the stronger the smell of the damp smoke was. There was no worse smell that she could think of. Helen’s heart was pounding so hard, as if it wanted to burst out of her chest. The entire situation made left Helen scared and nervous at the same time.

All of a sudden she felt as though she was no longer alone. She thought she could hear the screams she had heard from the locked crate the woman in red showed her when she was staying at the rectory. Could it be possible? She wasn’t sure of what to do, what direction to turn. Helen felt a familiar tap on the shoulder. Something told her not to be afraid to turn around. She turned quickly as if anxious to find out who it was. She had a feeling she already knew who it was. She was right, it was none other than the woman in red.

The woman in red lead Helen through all the rubble, they then stood amid the empty shell of the church and the smoldering rubble. The woman in red was pointing straight ahead. She never said anything. She pointed to a lit area coming from the corner where the church bell resides. Somehow that spot wasn’t to badly damaged. There was a door leading down a separate set of stairs leading up. Helen was lead down the stairs. The smell of smoke was no longer so obvious, which was strange being that they were still amid the remnants of all the rubble.

It seemed to take some time to get to where they were going. In all the years that Helen had been a part of the church, she didn’t remember anything under the church steeple. The woman in red pointed to a door straight ahead. Gesturing for Helen to enter. They entered and the first thing Helen saw was another crate. It was clearly different from the one that she had seen when she stayed at the rectory. Remembering what she saw in the last crate, she wasn’t really looking forward to what she might find in this one.

The woman in red showed her a pocket outside the crate that had an envelope in it. The envelope looked like it had to be more than 100 years old. It was quite yellow, but not torn. It just looked as if it had aged like pages in an old book. The envelope was so old that the seal had disintegrated and Helen was able to open it by just lifting it out of the envelope.

Helen started reading the letter, which was just instructions that if anything happened to the church that this crate must be taken to the church rectory and stored with the other crate already being stored there. Helen now understood what the woman in red needed her to do this time. Lucky for Helen, this crate wasn’t heavy. She followed the woman in red back the rectory basement. She again was not paying attention to where she was going. It was trance like every time she was with the woman in red. Once she delivered the crate placing it next to the other one, the woman in red walked her to a heavy gold framed door covered with carved angels. The door opened on its own. Helen was once again pushed and fell endlessly downward until the next thing she knew she was back home in her bed once again.

Helen didn’t even bother turning her head to see if her sister Ann was going to notice her return for she knew she was still fast asleep. Helen had given up on trying to figure out what was going on and what would happen next. She just closed her eyes hoping that no one would bother her at least for a while.

It was strange sleeping somewhere other than her own bed. Helen longed to be back home in her own room. The Rectory was big, old, scary and cold. She knew she should feel safe in the house of the lord, but it was strange, she always felt like there were people watching her, not just one, but many. Who could they possibly be? Helen wondered if they could be people who may have lived and died there in the years passed. What could they be so mad about in such a holy place?

At night when everyone was sleeping, Helen swore that she heard non stop crying. She wanted to know where the crying was coming from. She just had to figure it out. The wind was blowing hard, you could hear branches cracking then breaking off the tree limbs. It sounded like the wind was talking too. Maybe that was why the voices were crying. Maybe whoever was crying didn’t like the feel of the night and what they knew might be ahead of them.

Helen couldn’t wait anymore, she had to follow the screams. She got out of her bed and felt for her slippers under her bed. Helen quickly pulled her hand back. Something very cold had touched her hand. It was colder than ice. What, who would be hiding under her bed? What could they want from her? Helen screamed out to her sister Ann who appeared to be in a very deep sleep. Ann wouldn’t respond. Helen wanted to hide under the covers, but what if whatever or whomever were to come out and grab her? So she did the only thing she could do, she ran out of the room.

Helen’s feet felt much like whatever it was that had touched her hand underneath the bed. She wished that she had her slippers. But finding out where the screams were coming from was all that matter to her now. Just then Helen felt a presence standing next to her against the wall outside her room. She was too afraid to turn around for fear of what she might see. Helen knew she couldn’t just keep standing there, she would have to turn around. Helen took a deep breath and then just dug in deep and turned quickly and to my shock and disbelief stood none other than “The Lady in Red” standing right next to her. Helen almost lost it. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t run, she couldn’t hide. She had to stand there just hoping that she wasn’t going to be hurt. Why would the woman be here at the church? How did she know to find her there? Helen got the urge to turn around again. The woman in red was just lingering there staring at her. Helen didn’t know what to do, so she asked her, “What do you want from me? Why have you followed me here?” She pointed down the long dark hall. Did Helen dare go anywhere with her? She truly feared for her life.

The woman in Red was dragging Helen down the hall as if she were a rag doll. Now petrified, she definitely wasn’t willing to go on her own. The woman in red was holding Helen’s wrist, continuing to drag her to the destination. Where that was, was anyone’s guess. Helen’s wrist was now numb and her knees were shaking, at least she thought they were. She just wanted to get this over with so she could just go back to bed. Now she didn’t even care about the voices anymore. Helen was 100% scared.

When Helen lifted up her head and looked forward, she realized they were now in the basement. The woman in red was pointing to a crate. It was quite old and very heavy. It had gold brackets with an even bigger gold lock. Suddenly the screaming and crying voices were quite loud as if they were standing atop of them. It turns out they actually were. Somehow the voices were coming from the crate. The woman in red pointed to the crate as if she was instructing Helen to open it. She was hesitant because she of course had no idea about what might be in the crate, especially after thinking she heard screams coming from it.

Helen needed something to help her open the antique rusted lock on the crate. Before she could open her mouth to say anything to the woman in red, she had opened the crate for her. The cries and the screams were now piercingly loud. So much so that Helen had to hold her ears and was screaming herself. Again, the woman in red had come to her rescue. Helen never saw what she did, but the sound was lower now almost as if the screams were whispering.

Helen worked up the nerve to go and peak in the crate. Again her legs were shaking. She was so cold that she thought for a minute that she was in a walk in freezer. Her teeth started shattering. She leaned forward and to her disbelief she saw a crate full of tiny people laying on little beds in clothes from yesteryear. What could be the reason that they would be held prisoner in a crate inside a church? What sins could they have committed? How could they still be alive today? Was this really happening? Could what Sally saw in front her be real? She turned to question the woman in red, but she was nowhere to be found. Now Helen was full of fear because she wasn’t paying attention to how she got there and had no way of knowing how to make it back to her room. She was still worried about the small people in the crate, but wasn’t sure what the woman in red excepted her to do about what she had just seen.

Helen was suddenly overwhelmed by what was happening so much so that she fainted. When she woke up she found herself back in her closet in her own house. She could smell the fresh paint. Thankfully it was no longer wet. Propped up against the closet wall, Helen didn’t understand how she could be at her house when she went to bed in the church. Where was her sister Ann? Helen quickly crawled out of the closet and as she stood up, she saw that Ann was fast asleep in her bed. All Helen could do was climb into her own bed and try to get some more sleep. She would have to think about this in the morning.

Ann was trying to wake up Helen to make her stop screaming out in her sleep. She was sweating so badly that her sheets would need to be changed. Ann couldn’t imagine what could be upsetting her so much. Helen finally woke up. She looked as if she had seen a ghost, little did Anne know that Helen had in fact seen a ghost. The question is why hadn’t Anne ever seen it?

Helen woke up and wasn’t at all happy to find herself back at her own house. She had too many unanswered questions back at the church. Had someone put something in Helen’s food or drink and then sent her home because she stumbled onto something no one wanted anyone else to know about? Now Helen would never know. She wasn’t sure if she could deal with that. She would have to let it go for now.

Helen’s room didn’t have much to offer. There were two beds, one for her and the other for her sister Ann. A simple night stand separated the two beds. A lamp that Helen had made in Mr. Kelly’s woodworking class brought a soft light to the room. A three shelf light pine bookcase sat at the foot of the two beds leaning up against the wall with a few books, Helen’s broken dancing ballerina doll, Ann’s under construction transistor radio and a deck of playing cards. There was a 6 drawer pink bear claw dresser at the foot of each bed as well, one for each girl. Pictures of Scott Baio, Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett and Andy Gibb covered the pastel floral colored wall paper. There were pink frilly curtains hanging over the window with a cream-colored shade.

Because the girls were always told to keep their beds neat with no wrinkles, the pair spent a lot of their time sitting on the floor seated on their oval rug that had at least six different shades of pink swirling in a circle. They would sit and play the games neatly stored underneath either of their beds.

Helen however spent most of her free time in her bedroom closet. Undeterred by the overflowing amount of Helen and Ann’s Sunday dresses for church and Sunday school, there was still a lot of space to keep all their odds and ends so they wouldn’t clutter their room. Believe it or not, there was still also room for Helen and Ann to sit and tell each other ghost stories, chat about boys, listen to the TV playing in the living room or just listen to what the adults in the room were talking about. Sometimes they heard things they didn’t really want to hear. Especially when their dad told their mom that he would be home late that night because he had to fix some problems at one of his buildings. Tenants always needed something to be fixed. It didn’t matter that he has a family. The next day was Thanksgiving and they were all anxious to get sleep and wake-up to enjoy their holiday feast.

Helen and Ann woke up enthusiastically Thanksgiving morning, had their breakfast and settled into helping their mother prepare for their big feast. They were always responsible for chopping whatever needed chopping. There was celery and onions for the stuffing, carrots, potatoes and more onions to put with the roasted turkey. Helen hated turkey. She was always running to the bathroom getting sick. She never wanted to touch it. Once the girls finished their chores and the Turkey was roasting in the oven Helen seemed to get so ill. She ran into the closet to try to escape the smell coming from the kitchen. Thank goodness their room was at the other end of the house. Helen felt as if she was in another world while tucked away in her sanctuary. Ann kept calling her name, but she just wasn’t responding. Ann had no way of knowing that somehow Helen had slipped away to another corner of the world mentally. She was still physically hiding in her closet, but her mind was somewhere else.

Helen didn’t realize it yet, but the smell from the turkey had an effect on her that was life threatening. It would be by the grace and will of god that she would get through this night. While in the closet Helen had left herself. She was in another time, another place. She was in a mansion, but her parents were different. Her mother was quite tall about 5’11, slim with long, wavy brown hair. Her skin was a pale brownish red with soft brown eyes. Her smile was bright and happy. Her father was at least 6’1 with a just slightly lighter complexion, with short, blonde wavy hair and Blue eyes.

Helen didn’t know why they lived in such a big house; she seemed to be the only child. The house was kind of cold and somewhat scary. Was she really expected to be happy here? Why not? Her parents seemed to be really happy. Maybe they were only happy because she was there. Helen could hear the sound of a cat’s meow. She turned to see a Siamese cat who answered to the name of cocoa. It suited her since her colors were various shades of brown. The whole situation seemed kind of strange. It didn’t feel real. Helen found herself chasing the cat up the stairs; it seemed to take forever to reach the top. Somehow the stairs had changed. They were no longer straight and narrow stairs, she now found herself on a spiral staircase. This time, it wasn’t the woman in red pushing her over the railing; it was cocoa, the cat scratching at her ankles. Once again, Helen was taking the never-ending fall down the spiral staircase still never landing.

Helen’s next memory was sitting on the living room floor with her dad Adam, her brother Paul and her sister Ann. The movie Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang was playing on the TV while we were playing Monopoly. Helen’s brother Paul was yelling to their dad that it was his turn, but he was so mesmerized by the TV that he couldn’t hear his son. It was funny because her father didn’t really like TV, but it didn’t mean that he couldn’t get caught up in it every once in a while. Helen had enough her dad was going to win the game as usual any way. She excused herself and went to bed.

Suddenly, Helen was unable to breathe. She called out to her mother, but there was no answer. She called out to anyone, but no one responded. She tried to run into her closet, but there was smoke coming out of it, which made Helen fear for her safety. She couldn’t understand why she was here and no one else was answering. Trying to dodge the smoke Helen ran through the smoke ran to the stairs and ran out of the house as fast as she could. For once, she was happy not to have seen the spiral staircase. Once outside, she saw her family all huddled together. They didn’t even realize that Helen had been left in the house all alone. They had forgotten that she had gone off to bed. Helen was almost unrecognizable with every inch of her covered in suit from the smoke. The smell was horrible. Thankfully, the fire only caused damage to their apartment and the one below them. Drinking college students thought it smart to light a non working fireplace and go to sleep. Fortunately, everyone survived.

Helen and her family were church going people and their church was good to her and her family. Helen and her sister Ann got to stay at the church while their house was under construction. On their floor, it was just their room and the living room that had to be fixed it was the same for the apartment below them. The rooms were the same. Their father was so angry and swore never to rent to college students again.

The older neighborhood boys were kind of mean and would make jokes every time Helen and Ann passed by like “Did you have a nice turkey roast on Thanksgiving, heard you almost became dinner instead”. “Was that woman in the red dress there?” they would tease followed up by hysterical laughter. Helen would just cry and run off, because she knew they were really talking about her. Normal people would apologize and wish you well and offer to help, not torment you.

Helen and her sister, Ann were playing monopoly at the dining room table. Helen suddenly remembered that she and her sister promised their friend Julie that they would come over and play since it was a snow day and there was no school. Both girls yelled to their mom who was in her favorite spot at the kitchen table sipping a cup of tea while reading “Gone with the Wind” and watching “The Price Is Right”. “We’re going to Julie’s house, be back for dinner.” Since there was no response, the duo ran off towards Julie’s house. It was lucky for them she only lived around the corner.

There was so much snow outside. You could still see the over the snow banks. The sidewalks were clear which was the only reason the girls were lucky not to fall flat on their faces as they ran up the street. They only had to go to the top of their street, turn left and it was two houses down. Julie’s house was big and white with blue trim. They had a really nice brick walkway. What the girls didn’t know was that underneath the snow was an inch of slippery ice. As they were turning onto the walkway, they slid all the way down the walk way to the stairs. Ann was fine, she made it to the stairs without falling. Helen wasn’t so lucky. Her foot got caught on a small block of ice, it made her trip and she fell face forward onto the brick stairs. It was so cold she couldn’t really feel the pain. By the time she was able to stand up, Ann heard Julie’s mom apologizing saying that Julie ended up going to her grandmother’s house for the day. She apologized again and sent them on their way.

Once in the walkway, headed away from Julie’s house, Ann stopped abruptly and was staring at her sister she said, “why is their ketchup all over your face?” Helen replied, “I haven’t eaten anything, especially anything with ketchup.” She realized she must have cut herself when she fell. The girls hurried home so their mom could clean up the wound.

The girls arrived home but the door wouldn’t open. Ann was banging on the door so hard, they could hear their mother yelling “hold your horses, ill be right there.” When their mom opened the door, “Gone with the Wind” crashed to the floor and she started screaming, “Oh my lord Jesus, what happened, where did all of this blood come from?” She didn’t even wait for an answer, she picked Helen up and ran out of the house, yelling to Ann to stay put and tell her father that she was taking Helen to the hospital.

Helen had drifted off to sleep and woke up not ever knowing how she had gotten to the hospital. She woke to the sound of her mother yelling “Help, help, my baby is dying”, Helen knew it couldn’t be true. Her mother must just be really worried. A nurse grabbed Helen from her worried mother who was now covered in her daughters blood. Another nurse immediately came over and gave her a pair of scrubs to put on with a plastic bag to put her soiled clothing in. They wanted to cut the risk of infection.

Helen was laying on a stretcher, they had removed all of her clothes except for her undergarments and replaced them with a hospital Johnny. The room was so brightly lit. Helen’s head was spinning and suddenly she couldn’t control the urge to vomit. She pressed the button on the control the nurse had given her. Her mother came running in the room ahead of the nurse. Both women asked what was wrong at the same time. They didn’t have to wait for the answer they could tell what was happening. No sooner did the nurse hand Helen a container then out it came again. It felt like it would never stop. The nurse gave Helen some water so she could rinse her mouth out. Nurse Sheila said that “one thing is clear Janet; your daughter suffered a concussion. I will let Dr. Roberts decide how severe it is.”

Helen’s mother began pacing back and forth for the next 10 minutes. Dr. Roberts entered the room with his intern, Dr. Samuelson. Dr. Samuelson was all business he didn’t say a word. His cold, long fingers moved across Helen’s forehead searching for lumps, bruises, pain and dirt. He shined a small flash light in her eyes to check her pupils reactions. Helen could have sworn he saw a woman in a red dress peaking over his shoulder. It was actually kind of strange because she had the feeling she had seen her before, she was trying to think of where it might have been. It came to her just as fast as she had thought about it. It was the woman in red from the basement in her house.

The room that was just full of bright lights was suddenly black. Helen couldn’t see anyone or anything. There was nothing but emptiness. There wasn’t even any noise. What had just happened. Was her mother right? Was it possible that Helen was in fact dying? That wasn’t possible, she was way too young for that. She did fall pretty hard on the ice, anything was possible.

Suddenly there was a spot of red coming towards her, it kept getting brighter as it got closer. Helen was now frightened, she could start to see again. The woman in red was back. Had Helen fainted? Where was she? Why was the woman in red the only thing and the only person she could see? Where was her mother? The doctors? The nurses?

The woman in red was saying something but Helen couldn’t understand her and just started making faces. The woman in red grabbed Helen’s arm and suddenly they were looking down at the street from the roof of the hospital building. Why would the woman in red bring her here? What did she want from Helen.

Helen yanked her arm away and ran to the first door she saw. The metal door was really heavy. Helen was so strong at that moment because her adrenaline was out of whack . Helen didn’t even want to turn around to see if the woman in red had followed her. Helen reached the stairs, her eyes opened wide. What did she see before her? It was the white endless staircase with pinewood railings. Why were these stairs here? Were they meant just for Helen? Where did they lead. All of a sudden she was pushed, she heard the sounds of laughter. She turned her head around as she was falling to see a smile on the face of the woman in red. Helen just kept falling.

Suddenly, Helen’s eyes were burning she had blacked out and the nurse was swinging smelling salt in front of her nose to bring her back around. She said welcome back Helen. We thought we had lost you there for a moment. Where did you go? Helen couldn’t tell her what had happened to her, she would think she was crazy. She just replied and said she didn’t know and that she was just glad to be back.

Helen was glad to be home. She had 12 stitches above her left eye and a severe concussion. The hospital wanted to keep her for a couple of nights, but her mother wanted her to recover at home with her family. Helen was glad because she was afraid someone was trying to kill her and she just wanted out of that hospital. The doctor told her mother Janet, that Helen was not allowed to take gym class, do any heavy lifting or play any sports for at least two weeks. She would have to come back in a week to ten days to get the stitches out. The doctor also warned that if she had any trouble waking Helen up, that she was to call for an ambulance and bring her right back to the hospital.

Did you ever have an Incident that just couldn’t get out of your head, it just endlessly circulates in your brain through the years? Since the age of 6, Helen has had this long-standing dream about a spiral staircase that seemed as though it was 20 stories high. Whenever Helen was falling down the spiral staircase, it seemed to be never-ending and she never made impact. The question Helen always asked herself, “why was she dreaming about it in the first place?” When Helen first moved into the house she was only three. When you are that young, everything is big and scary. Somehow it seemed even scarier to Helen because every time she slept, she always had nightmares about the house she lived in or strange things would occur. Every night she would live through a different story almost as if when she was away, she was one person and when she slept she was another person. Every Incident would end with her falling down the never-ending spiral staircase.

Helen asked that we share some of her experiences with you.

Incident #1

The Window

Helen walks to the living room looking out the far right window through the clear white curtain. The streets had just been swept by the prisoners locked up in the county jail. It was their job to keep the parks and streets of the town clean. That was part of how they had to pay penance for their crimes.

Everything looked fresh, clean and new. Something seemed different though. Helen just couldn’t put her finger on just what it was. Then suddenly she realized, she wasn’t in the time she was supposed to be. At least that wasn’t what she saw before her. It should be 1969, but it was clear to her that somehow she was somewhere in the early 1900’s as it appeared before her outside her living-room window. There were no cars on the street. There were people with bikes that had big front wheels and little back wheels and they were sitting up high on a small seat. Some people were also riding unicycles, the bikes with only one wheel. Some people were even in buggies driven by horses. The women were all in long dresses and hats on top of their heads. All the men were wearing suites. Helen was yelling hello out to all the people from her window, but no one seemed to hear her. No one looked toward the window to see where the voice was coming from. Why couldn’t they hear her? she wondered. What was stranger was the inside of Helen’s house didn’t match what it looked like outside. Inside her house it was still 1969. How could that be?

Helen wanted to leave the house so badly. she wanted to be outside riding the funny bikes or riding in the horse and buggy, but she was too afraid that she might get lost in what looked to be another time and place. If she got lost, who would take care of her? How would they treat her since she didn’t look the way they looked and didn’t dress the same way they did? Would they think she was a child slave? Would they even allow her to try to return home? So Helen continued looking out the window hoping that someone would look up and notice her.

Suddenly, Helen felt someone tugging at her shoulder. She quickly turned around but saw no one there. She did hear loud footsteps and someone giggling. She followed the sounds to her front door. She could still hear noises on the other side of the door. There was no way she wasn’t going to attempt to find out what the noise was or who was making the noise now. Who knows, maybe she would make a new friend.

Helen opened her front door. It was strange though, some how the stairs that were in front of her were not the ones she normally saw. This staircase was spiral, painted white with brown pine wood banisters. They were beautiful and looked as if someone had put them there just for her. There was one problem though, they seemed pretty steep and seemed as if they had no end.

Helen’s only thoughts were what would happen to her if she were to step onto the staircase? Where would they lead her? Should she dare? Suddenly, it felt as if she was pushed. She heard the same giggle that she had heard inside the house and the funny noises that followed. She was now falling down the center of the staircase. She felt as though she was flying like a bird. She could see no end to the staircase. Just as she thought she was going to hit the bottom, she was suddenly awake in her bed soaked as if she was dumped in a pool of water.

She ran to look out the window in the living room. It looked like 1969 again outside. There was no sign of the horse and buggy. No uni-cycles or bikes with one big wheel in front and a small wheel in the back. People were wearing jeans or regular dresses. The only hat Helen saw was a baseball cap. She ran to her front door. The spiral staircase was no longer there. It was the regular two-story staircase lined with brown carpet down the middle.

Helen was so disappointed she changed her clothes and went to eat breakfast all by herself without following her normal routine of waking someone else to keep her company.